“Brother Sinsear is perfectly correct,” interrupted Heribert. “Members of our community often go to Nivelles to help them with the heavy building work and the upkeep of their fields and crops. In fact, Brother Sinsear took produce to Nivelles only yesterday afternoon. Ah, and didn’t Brother Cano accompany you?”
Brother Sinsear flushed and nodded reluctantly.
Fidelma pursed her lips thoughtfully.
“There is a further question that I must now ask Sister Delia. Please wait for me here.”
In the infirmary Sister Delia, although pale-faced and weak, was looking much improved.
“Sister Delia,” Fidelma began without preamble. “There is only one question I need ask you. Why did you especially ask to be allowed to take the vial of holy blood to Fosse today?”
“Sister Cessair asked me to.”
“Cessair, eh? Then it was not your idea?”
“No. Neither was it her idea, to be truthful. She knew that there would be some argument with the Abbot who disliked her and was reluctant to go. However, Brother Cano had especially asked her to come….”
“How had he asked? Had he not seen her yesterday?”
“No. He sent a message for there is always someone coming or going between our two abbeys. He sent a note to Cessair asking her to come early to the hut so that he would spent a few moments with her to discuss their future.”
“Did you approve of her meetings with Cano?”
“I was Cessair’s friend. I knew that there is no stopping the stupidities that love brings with it. And I thought it was only one question that you wished to ask?”
“So it was. Is this the note?” She pulled out the piece of torn paper from her marsupium.
Sister Delia glanced at it and shrugged.
“I do not read Ogham,” she said. “But I think it is part of the note. Cano and Cessair used the ancient form of Irish writing to write cryptic notes to one another.”
Fidelma turned back to the refectory.
“I think I have the solution to this mystery,” she announced as Abbess Ballgel and Abbot Heribert gazed up as she reentered the refectory.
“Who then is guilty?” demanded Heribert.
“Ask Brother Cano to come here. You will remain, Brother Sin-sear.”
“Brother Cano,” Fidelma began when the young man arrived, “the future looks bleak for you.”
Cano grimaced in resignation.
“The future is empty for me,” he corrected. “Without Cessair, my life is indeed an abyss filled with pain.”
“Why did you ask Cessair to meet you today?”
“I have told you already. So that we could plan to go away together and find a mixed house where we could live and work together and, God willing, raise our children in his service.”
“Whose idea was that?”
“Mine.”
“I thought that someone else might have suggested it to you as a solution to your problems,” Fidelma said quietly.
Cano frowned. “It matters not who suggested it. That was the purpose of our rendezvous.”
“It does matter. Wasn’t it Brother Sinsear who suggested that you should plan to leave here?”
“Perhaps. Sinsear has been a good friend. He saw that there was no future for us here.”
“You went with Brother Sinsear to Nivelles last evening to take garden produce. Why didn’t you speak with Cessair then?”
“We arrived during the evening service and as there was no excuse to delay at Nivelles, I wrote Cessair a note in Ogham suggesting the meeting. I knew that Cessair could read the ancient Irish writing so I put the instructions in that note and left it with the gatekeeper.”
“Yes. It all fits now,” Fidelma sighed. She turned to the young Brother. “Sinsear, would you mind handing Abbess Ballgel the vial of holy blood from your marsupium? The Abbess has been fretful about it ever since she realized that it was missing.”
Brother Sinsear started, his face white. As if in a dream he opened his waist purse and handed it over.
“I found it on the ground…. I meant to give it to you before. …”
Fidelma shook her head sadly.
“One of the most terrible passions is love turned to hatred because of rejection. A lover who sees the object of their love in love with a rival can sometimes be transformed into a fiend incarnate.”
Brother Cano looked astounded.
“Cessair did not reject me,” he exclaimed. “I tell you again, I did not kill her. We planned to go away together.”
“It is Sinsear to whom I refer,” replied Fidelma. “It was Sinsear whose love had turned to a rage-who wanted to hurt and mutilate her.”
Sinsear was staring at her open-mouthed.
“Sinsear had been in love with Cessair for a long time. Being young and unable to articulate his love, he worshipped her from afar, dreaming of the day when he could summon up courage to declare himself. Then Cano arrived. At first the two were good friends. Then Sinsear introduced Cano to his love. Horror! Cano and Cessair fell truly in love. Day by day, Sinsear found himself watching their passion and his jealousy grew to such a peak at what he saw as Cessair’s rejection of him, that his mind broke with the anguish. He would revenge himself on Cessair with such a vengeance that hell did not possess.”
Sinsear stood with his face drained of all emotion.
“He suggested to Cano that he invite Cessair to a rendezvous in the hut and gave him the pretext of discussing a means of leaving the abbeys. Then he left Fosse in plenty of time to climb the old oak, hiding among the low-hanging branches, to await the arrival of Cessair and her companion. That was why Sister Delia did not hear anyone approach them from behind. He jumped down. I saw the indentation where he landed. He landed just behind Delia and felled her with a blow before she knew it. Am I right?”
Sinsear did not respond.
“Perhaps then he revealed his twisted love to Cessair. Perhaps he begged her to go with him. Did she react in horror, did she laugh? How did she treat this frenzied would-be-lover? We only know how it resulted. He struck her several blows on the head and then, in a gruesome ritual, which serves to demonstrate his immaturity, he decided to punish her beauty by which she beguiled him by mutilating her face with a knife. Whether he tied her first to the tree or not, we do not know unless he tells us. But I have no doubt that she was dead by then.
“Something made him pick up the vial of holy blood and his religious training took the better of him, for instead of leaving it in Cessair’s purse, he put it in his own for safekeeping. Knowing the missing vial was irrelevant, I could not account for its disappearance before.
“Perhaps then he heard Sister Delia coming to. He turned and raced on to Nivelles to raise the alarm. He believed that Sister Delia would probably go on to Fosse to raise the alarm which is why he chose Nivelles.”
Abbot Heribert was staring at Sinsear, seeing the truth of Fi-delma’s accusation confirmed in his cold features.
“How did you first suspect him?” he asked.
“Many reasons can be mentioned if you think back over the events. But, according to his story, Sinsear went along the path in search of Cessair and Delia. He found Cessair dead and tied to the tree. He claimed that he had reached the point after Delia had disappeared. But how could he have seen the body tied to the tree when it was on the far side of the tree to the path he was traveling?
“Even allowing he somehow might have spotted something that made him suspicious, that he was so distraught that he did not think to cut her down and see if he could revive her, why did he run on to Nivelles?”
“For help. He wished to raise the alarm and, as he pointed out when you asked, Nivelles was closer than Fosse to the place. It is logical.”
“There was an even closer place to seek help,” Fidelma pointed out. “Why not go there? He knew that Brother Cano was waiting in the woodsman’s hut just a few hundred meters away. Had he been innocent, he would have rushed to seek Cano and get immediate help.”